Various techniques are available to provide enhanced realism and improved user experience in computer-generated three-dimensional environments. Traditional techniques have employed the use of skyboxes or near-field particle systems, which can provide viewers with a false illusion of being surrounded by a real three-dimensional world. For instance, a skybox projects a series of two-dimensional textures onto faces of a geometric structure (e.g., a cuboid or sphere) that remain sufficiently distant and nearly static, relative to the viewer. Having sufficiently large coordinate distances, a variation in camera positions within the skybox can produce minimal variations in rendering perception. In this way, skyboxes can provide a false perception that distant objects have infinite or far-field depth, while other objects closer to the viewer appear to move. In essence, a viewer positioned within a properly configured skybox can falsely perceive the illusion of being surrounded by a three-dimensional world made up of perceived far-field objects when, in fact, the surrounding three-dimensional world is merely displaced by relatively small distances. Near-field particle systems can also be utilized to simulate an environment made up of many particles, such as a star system. The particles are generally positioned far enough away from a viewer so that they are perceived as being static and of infinite depth, similar to that of a skybox. With generally high computing costs associated with processing three-dimensional graphics, skyboxes and near-field particle systems have effectively enabled the rendering of far-field objects within a limited bit-depth environment, further facilitating the possibilities of processing three-dimensional graphics in real time.
With the advent of head-mounted displays, virtual and augmented reality applications now utilize advanced technologies that facilitate user visual and depth acuity to determine perceived depth with far greater accuracy than in traditional three-dimensional applications. Stereoscopic rendering, for instance, can provide an illusion of depth by rendering two slightly offset two-dimensional images for observation by each eye of the viewer. Stereo vision, positional-tracking, and head-tracking technologies further enable the viewer to easily discern objects having a false depth, as the viewer can now traverse rendered three-dimensional environments and/or view the virtualized objects from varying perspectives. Moreover, the viewer can now estimate and perceive distances based on visual and temporal cues facilitated by such technologies.
In order to prevent viewer discernment of the false-depth illusion, skyboxes and particle systems must rely on very large coordinate systems to simulate large distances. Unfortunately, larger coordinate systems can be computationally expensive and difficult to configure. For instance, the rendering of objects at large distances would necessitate a much larger and more detailed skybox and/or particle system. In this regard, processor demand is significantly increased as rendering computations become quantifiably more complex. As virtual and augmented reality technologies now make it easier for the viewer to discern depth, it would be highly beneficial to adopt the benefits of computationally-efficient near-field environments for augmented and virtual reality applications, such that the viewer may continue to experience the false illusion that a near-field object is of infinite or far-field depth.